Email to a Friend

Rollouts have been getting a bad name since the Battle of the Bulge, but usually not because the product was unavailable.

New Coke, the Ford Pinto, the USFL — all launched on time. The public said “meh,” and they went away.

Non-transparent pricing has been dead longer than Elvis. The first thing you show folks is the price, not the last.

Single-screen data gulps are my preferred choice, and I flee from sites that don’t give me the data I want quickly.

If you liked the health care that you had, it should have been outsourced to Amazon.com. Period. If you liked the doctor you had, he or she should have been on eHarmony.com. Period.

Thomas Nelson is my publisher and is prepping the roll out of my new book, “The Happiest Life,” which will be delivered on doorsteps Dec. 31, provided Thomas Nelson does everything differently from the folks who rolled out Obamacare.

First, we want to under-promise and over-deliver, encouraging our version of early enrollment by allowing for pre-ordering today for delivery just in time to make your New Year’s resolutions. Done.

Next, we want the outsourcing of the launch team to include many talented people, most of whom we have never met, much less know. Done.

Third, we want product testing from outsiders. Done. (See “Endorsements” by advance readers at the advance order site.)

Fourth, we want to provide a product, not a burden. Done. Finally, we want to improve lives, not worsen them. Can’t say “done.” Can say hopeful.

It’s remarkable, really, that Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble and all booksellers and publishers have figured out this code-writing and rollout stuff for years and years. They do it, oh, 300,000 times a year.

Demand for it was huge, but far from crashing. Amazon briefly ran out of this book, but quickly restocked and kept selling.

The PR effort was seamless. Here is my interview with Dr. K. He appeared on time and stayed through the appointed hour. He sold books. He deserved to. Word of mouth was, shall we say, past the moon?

Ditto the New York Times’ Peter Baker, whose “Days of Fire” on the Bush-Cheney administration is a remarkable bit of reporting. As with Krauthammer, Baker was on time and on message. That interview is here.

Of course, it isn’t just books. All over the country, Internet commerce whirls along, brilliantly innovating new products and efficiencies, happy consumers, a growing GDP.

Not with Obamacare, an excuse-covered Krakatoa of blame shifting diversions and endless delays. It is amazing. Was it outsourced to a hot dog stand? Sorry, unfair to hot dog stands.

No one has one reason to expect it will get better and many reasons to believe it will get much worse. How much worse?

Word is Canadians are planning on their elective surgeries happening north of the border. Just a rumor mind you, but Mark Steyn isn’t denying it.

Virginia votes Tuesday. Democrat Terry McAuliffe is an Obamacare true believer, a double-downer. Go ahead Commonwealth. Make the day of Obamacare believers everywhere, and vote them some more temporary cover.

Or help save the country by updating and amplifying the message of the Scott Brown election of 2010, but in a way that not even the cement bunkered Harry Reid or his endangered list of incumbents can miss.